High-salt Diet May Disrupt Body Clock and increase risk of disease and death: Study

Researchers at the University of Alabama at Birmingham fed mice an HSD and measured their movement throughout the day as well as their neuronal activity. Although their total activity was similar to control mice, HSD mice did not follow sleep-wake patterns established as normal by previous studies.

A hallmark trait of the suprachiasmatic nucleus (SCN) is to have higher neural activity during the day and less at night. However, HSD mice exhibited significantly elevated neuronal excitability at night as compared to control mice. "Neuronal excitability at night could lead to decline or mistiming of sleep-wake, hormonal and physiological rhythms," researchers wrote.

Nighttime neural activity abated when the mice were treated with an endothelin B receptor blocker. This abatement demonstrates both that the endothelin system may affect circadian rhythms and that endothelin B receptor medications could have unexpected impacts on the body clocks of people taking them.